I actually get out bed at 6:00 in the ayem (grunt) to PAY someone to be personal paparazzi for me and The Good Man.

Today was our engagement photo day. Part of the package deal we got with our wedding photos.

Well all righty, then.

I was terribly nervous and not terribly prepared. Yesterday I realized that my nails and toes were a MESS and we had dinner out with friends last evening. Time just ran out.

So…I had a “special” offsite meeting at work and at least got that cleaned up.

I agonized over what to wear. So did TGM. We’re both awfully independent cusses, so really, we didn’t consult with each other much on color or style. And yet, we intuitively ended up blending together just right (we’re all pycho psychic that way).

We trudged up to San Francisco for a variety of locations for the shoot.

It was kind of a crazy day, one of those oddball times where nothing seems to come together and then yet it did. Our photographer forgot her camera battery, so right away off we went to obtain a new one…until she remembered she had a spare “emergency” one tucked in her bag. She was terribly embarrassed but need not have been. We ALL do stuff like that…

Later I got dive bombed by a little blackbird in the park that I guess wanted some hair for it’s lnest because it tugged out a few strands and *freaked* me OUT.

All weird sh*t aside, once we got going, it all came together. Our photographer is really great and super creative and very professional.

Who knows if the pictures all came out ok or if TGM and I just ended up looking dyspeptic in all the shots. Could go either way.

But at least TGM and I had some fun ideas for locations. Our photog says she gets a little tired of all the same locations in SF. Baker Beach (with the Golden Gate in the background…you’ve seen this photo…over and over and over), Palace of Fine Art (a MAJOR wedding photo location…just, ugh) and hanging off a trolley car (uh…no).

Instead we picked Nob Hill, North Beach and AT&T Park.

We have a few weeks for the photographer to get up uploaded so we can see how they all came out.

But for today. Whoosh, am I tired. I mean, really tired. How can posing and smiling big cheese and kissing my handsome man wear me out so much?

But it did.

Ah well, this is the next milestone in our journey toward getting hitched. Just over 70 days remain.

“Someone stole a Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Department patrol car early Wednesday and apparently took it for a joy ride.

But the fun may not have stopped there for the bandit who took the patrol car from a county storage yard. Police are looking into the possibility the thief impersonated a sheriff’s deputy while using the stolen car to make traffic stops— while drunk.

The New Mexico State Police— which has taken over the investigation— is looking into a report the driver then used the car to make at least one traffic stop in Chimayó. A woman called State Police and told them that a man in a sheriff’s vehicle had stopped her and that he also seemed drunk.”

Ok so…questions and observations:

1) What size cajones does it take to steal a Sherffi’s car from the county lot? Or maybe not cajones, perhaps this is better measured in liters, or pints or….whatever measurement Mad Dog comes in.

2) Who hasn’t had, if even for a brief moment, the odd dream of making a stop in a patrol car. Blue and whites flashing. Sauntering up to the driver’s window, double knit beige polyester pants whiffing as you walk, mirrored aviator glasses in place. You utter something like, “Do you know how fast you were going?”

Someone was actually drunk enough to pull it off…and get away with it (so far).

3) How freaked out must the woman have been when she was stopped? WTF must THAT encounter have been like?

4) “(Santa Fe County sheriff’s Capt. Robert) Riggs said that in his 20 years as a cop, he hasn’t seen anything like this before.” You gotta work REAL hard to show a cop something he hasn’t seen before. Even in Santa Fe.

5) Is it wrong that I’m rooting, just a little, for the guy to not get caught? I know, I know, just because a crime is dadgum funny doesn’t make it any less a crime.

6) Once again, I’m ever so proud of where I come from. Go on Oh Fair New Mexico. Most other states take themselves WAY too seriously. We’ve still got the comedic edge. And that makes us special.

On the CalTrain this morning coming in to work (commuting always the best place for random observations of human behavior):

A very mild mannered looking Asian man in tweed coat with elbow patches was seen white-knuckled-clutching a thick stack of bright red paper slips. I wondered what they were.

As I passed the racks holding maps and schedules, I saw the red slips. “Customer Complaints” they said at the top and featured several inky black lines down the page.

I wondered. What did that quiet well-dressed man have to complain about? In quantity.

I envisioned him at home angrily scratching out all his perceived failures of the CalTrain system, feeling better as each slip is completed, shaky hand taking a drink of a whiskey neat as he does so.

At the Semi-Well-Known sorta Italian chain restaurant on Sunday:

A schlumpy dressed man escorts a *gorgeous* leggy woman dressed to the nines through the front door. His eyes dart around the room. When the hostess asks how he may be helped, he says, “It’s busy here…we’re going next door, they have a bar!” To her credit, the hostess just smiles and says, “Have one for me…”

As The Good Man and I had our dinner, we observe the place next door is having a special night and is *packed*. More so than the place we’re at. So schlumpy man and hot chick (clearly dressed for a date) wouldn’t have stayed there either.

I envision them darting from place to place, schlumpy man never satisfied with the situation. This one too bright. That one too loud. That one over there has a funny smell. An evening long quest.

Woman’s feet are now tired in her four-inch platforms. She thought she’d be sitting more, sipping a nice Cabernet. Schlumpy man finally settles on International House of Pancakes and calls it a night. Beautiful and usually well-kept woman calls it an early night.

I envision that Schlumpy man’s phone doesn’t ring, no email in the inbox. And he wonders why.

At the local chain drug store:

A large man of what appears to be the Italian persuasion walks through the store, talking to himself. At first I think he’s on a mobile phone. He is not.

He’s got all the stereotypical accoutrements of a Guido from Joisey. He’s wearing dark sweatpants with rounded boiler belly pushing at a stained button down shirt worn under a nice looking navy blue blazer. With gold buttons. I can’t tell, but I think little anchors are imprinted into those buttons.

Hair is slicked well back. Tarnished gold-rimmed dark-lensed sunglasses in place over his eyes. It is early evening.

He toddles off to collect his requirements. I forget about him.

We find him again on line behind us. I have to return an item. When I got in line, there was no one else. Now there is a long line. Clerk is confuzzled about the return process. So everyone waits. On me.

Guido has set down his purchases on the rolling belt. It consists solely of a large bag of potato chips and two fo’ties (fourty ouncers of Coors. I’d have placed him as a Miller or Bud man. Maybe Coors was on sale.)

I’m currently reading a novel about a guy who is a hit man for a “made man”. This colors my outlook. I’m thinking, “I’m gonna get popped for making this guy wait.” My eyes go shifty.

Guido cracks a joke. About the cake mix on my pile of purchases waiting on the cashier. He says, “That takes too much work, you can just buy that already made!” and laughs a too-loud belly guffaw. I laugh nervously. My Brooklyn-born fiancée kibitzes with Guido. They laugh together. Guido isn’t mad, just impatient.

I discover Guido is probably just another lonely guy in suburban California. Happy to have had a few moments interaction with some other people.

I envision him driving off in a battered black Lincoln or Caddy, body in the trunk thumping as he whips around the corner on his way home to watch Sopranos reruns.

I remind myself not to take the fiction I read so literally.

At the well-known trendy natural and organic foods market:

The muzac is playing over the PA system. On this day they’ve chosen 80’s hits. Clearly appealing to the Gen X crowd that makes up much of their clientele.

Loverboy is in the air. “Only the Lucky Ones”

Soon to be middle-aged Girl remembers how her sister used to LOVE that band. She had the album on vinyl. The cover replete with the buttocks of Mike Reno clad in red leather pants with crossed fingers. Album titled “Get Lucky“.

Girl used to borrow her sister’s album and play it over and over and over. All those burgeoning teenage giggly thoughts about gazing at Mike Reno’s arse come bubbling up in her soon to be middle-aged mind. She remembers.

And she begins to sing along. In public.

She finds her mate. And decides to entertain him by doing a full air guitar solo while singing along.

And people walk by…unnoticing. Intent on finding their steel cut oats or their Kombuchi drinks.

Karen Fayeth

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About Me

Raised most of my life in New Mexico, my job brought me to Northern California. I don't usually identify myself as a Californian, simply a New Mexican living in California. In the first couple years after moving, I distanced myself from my home state thinking it backward and remote. Then I began to visit home more frequently and truly learned a love for my home state that only comes by gaining perspective. I'm a writer, a crafter, a photographer and labor at a "real job" during the days.